Fathers' Daughter

Becca Lazarus And Her Fathers

TOM BROWN / HARTFORD COURANT

BECCA LAZARUS , 13, is ready to dig in with her two fathers, Eric Lazarus, left, and Jason Charette at their home in Windsor. It's a study in normality, but not everyone approves of same-sex parenting.

BECCA LAZARUS , 13, is ready to dig in with her two fathers, Eric Lazarus, left, and Jason Charette at their home in Windsor. It's a study in normality, but not everyone approves of same-sex parenting. (TOM BROWN / HARTFORD COURANT)

Becca Lazarus is a high-achieving seventh-grader who plays the saxophone, just made the track team, is a whiz at math and has blazed through every Harry Potter book. She lives in a ranch house with vinyl siding on a dead-end street in Windsor with her dogs, her cat and her two dads.

Kids, especially middle school kids, can be cruel. They sometimes make fun of Becca's edgy sense of style -- black high-top sneakers, black clothes and spiky hair. They occasionally rag on her taste in music, which runs from the Goth band Evanescence to the bubblegum-emo of Fall Out Boy.

But no one at Sage Park Middle School teases Becca about her two dads.

This effervescent 13-year-old is on the vanguard of a social movement: She's among the first wave of kids to be raised by openly gay parents. And while that may be no big deal to her and her friends, it remains a controversial notion to much of America.

During a marathon public hearing last week on a bill that would legalize same-sex marriage in Connecticut, there was a great deal of talk about what is in the best interests of children like Becca.

"Children do best with both a mother and a father,'' Brian Brown, the married father of five who heads the Family Institute of Connecticut, told the legislature's judiciary committee.

In written testimony submitted prior to the hearing, Brown elaborated: "Same-sex marriage severs the tie between marriage and parenthood; it gives the state stamp of approval on an institution that creates permanent motherless-ness and fatherless-ness.''

The American Academy of Pediatrics believes otherwise. The group cites studies showing that the sons and daughters of gays and lesbians are as well-adjusted as the children of heterosexual couples, though they are harmed by laws prohibiting their same-sex parents from marrying.

This is a debate that couldn't have happened even a decade ago. For most of history, parenthood was off-limits to gays and lesbians who chose to live together as a couple. Some had children through previous heterosexual relationships, but for most, raising a family wasn't an option.

That's not the case anymore, thanks to adoption, surrogacy and artificial insemination. According to U.S. Census data cited by the Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation Law and Public Policy, more than a quarter of all same-gender couples in Connecticut are raising children, a number that has surely risen since the count was completed in 2000.

When 20-year-old Andrew Devine was growing up in Stamford, he didn't know any other families like his. "My parents were the first,'' said Devine, who was born to a surrogate hired by his two fathers. "I feel very lucky. My dads always tell me, `You should know that we really, really wanted you 100 percent.'''

He came of age in an era of Ellen, "Will and Grace'' and "Heather Has Two Mommies''; his parents' sexual identity was never a problem. If anything, it has been a plus, said Devine, now a college student in Boston. "All my girlfriends loved my dads,'' he said. "My guy friends like them too. ... The media makes being gay to be this huge deal, like they're different and have limp wrists and everything, but that's not the way it is.''

Dawn Stefanowicz had a very different experience. Her father took her to a gay nude beach when she was 8 and to meeting places where he hooked up with other men, encounters that left her deeply scarred.

"From the time I was an infant, my father was involved with various men,'' said Stefanowicz, a married mother of two in her mid-40s. She lives in Ontario but was in Hartford last week to speak out against the marriage bill.

Although Stefanowicz loved her father, who has since died of AIDS, she felt confused, anxious and isolated by the life he led.

"I felt pressure to protect him and protect his reputation, but at the same time I was deeply burdened carrying around a number of secrets about the kind of household I was growing up in,'' Stefanowicz said in a phone interview a few days after the legislative hearing. "I was exposed to diverse sexuality and an emphasis on gender neutrality, which eventually created confusion around my own sexuality.''

Being a good parent has nothing to do with sexual orientation, said Anna Heller, a psychotherapist from Cambridge, Mass., whose mother is a lesbian. "Parenting is a very complicated relationship,'' she said. "People don't always do it well, but that's not because they're gay.'' Heller, who grew up in Willimantic, is a co-founder of COLAGE, a national organization for the children of lesbian and gay parents.

Heller was one of dozens of people who testified at the hearing last week. The judiciary committee is expected to vote on the same-sex marriage bill next week.

Some lawmakers struggling with the issue say children are their main concern.

"Clearly there's evidence a same-sex couple can raise a child,'' Sen. John Kissel, a Republican from Enfield, said last week. "But it's worth noting that we celebrate diversity as an ideal in every other aspect of life. It strikes me as anomalous that in child rearing, we wouldn't celebrate the diversity of a heterosexual couple's giving a child two major role models.

"It's also worth reinforcing that only through some combination of a man and a woman does humankind procreate itself. It doesn't necessarily have to be through traditional means, but at the heart of it, it takes some biological material from a man and a woman to create a child.''

Becca Lazarus was born when her father Eric was married to a woman. Becca's mom died when Becca was 3, and shortly after that, Eric came out about being gay.

"I loved her mother dearly and I was devastated when she passed away,'' said Eric, who is 41 and works in the insurance industry. "My wife knew I had dated men and women. ... Before she died, she told me it didn't matter if I was with a man or a woman, as long as they were good to Becca.''

Eric met Jason Charette, a professional pet groomer, about two years later; this year, they celebrated their eighth anniversary.

There have been some bumps along the way for Becca. At first, she was angry, not because her dad was gay but because she feared Jason was going to replace her mom.

She has since come to love the man she calls "pops.'' They share a passion for the Red Sox and riding scary roller coasters. He taught her karate, takes her to band practice and "is always there emotionally for me, just like any other dad,'' Becca wrote in a statement of support for same-sex marriage.

Other matters were tougher to resolve. Before the family moved to Windsor, they lived in a small town in eastern Connecticut. Becca rarely had friends spend the night at her house -- their parents wouldn't permit sleepovers. At church, the minister told her that her dads were going to burn in hell.

Life has improved since moving to Windsor 2 1/2 years ago. She hosted her first big slumber party, an all-night gorge-fest for 11 girls featuring sushi, chocolate chip cookies, cheese doodles and Mountain Dew. The family joined a Unitarian church in West Hartford that has accepted and embraced them.

And Becca started a chapter of COLAGE; she now gets together with two dozen other kids whose parents look a lot like hers.

With Becca on the cusp of becoming a woman, Eric and Jason suddenly have to confront things they know nothing about. Like menstruation and make-up. Buying a bra. They bought books and consulted experts.

Boys are another frontier. They are beginning to call and e-mail Becca, but "she's not dating until she's 24 and has her master's degree,'' Eric announced. He recently moved Becca's computer out of her bedroom to keep a closer watch over her online activities.

"We're just like any other family,'' Eric said. "We live in an average house. We worry about the same things any parents worry about. ... We don't go to parades dressed in tutus.''

In June, Eric and Jason will walk down the aisle before 100 guests and be joined in a civil union. Becca will be right there, with them.